A New Image of Comedy

Schizo-Analysis and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Dayman:

‘Dayman, aah-aahh-aaahhh, Fighter of the Nightman, aah-aahh-aaahhh, Champion of the Sun, You’re a master of karate and friendship for everyone, Dayman, aah-aah-aaahhh, Daaaymaaaannn…’

– Dayman, by Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly

Removing Structure from the image of thought:

            In envisioning their philosophical method, Deleuze and Guittari faced one over-arching plane of immanence that could summarize the whole of their intent for the project that they invested such great amounts of time and effort into.  This goal, if one calls it that, was to challenge the very structure within which we pertain to think about thought; challenging the framework that had culminated in the ‘End of Philosophy’ in the Hegelian and Heideggerian schools, and to establish what might be termed a ‘new image of thought.’  This ‘new image of thought’ would force a completely re-imagining of how we comprehend our reality - now a ‘plane of immanence’ - and how we answer the question ‘what is philosophy’.  This new image of thought would additionally require a new groundwork to replace the hierarchy-establishing and depth-seeking systems dominating philosophical-thought in the modern era.  These related methods were the approaches advanced in Marxism, Freud’s Psychoanalysis, and structuralism, such as the system outlined by Heidegger.  Deleuze and Guittari saw these theories as the result of the culmination of philosophy in Hegel’s ‘end of philosophy’.  Hegel’s system of incorporating negation as applied to the identity-difference relationship had allowed him absorb any critique into his philosophy.  Every new attempt in philosophy, moreover, seemed inevitably bound to simply repeat Hegel’s philosophy.

            Hegel’s ever-so-powerful tool for making this ‘truth’ was the dialectic.  The dialectic established that the identity of a subject-statement was the result of the negation of propositions; x is y, and x is not y.  According to Deleuze, this image of thought searched for truth in the ‘depths’ because it believed that there existed a true identity of difference.  This was the culmination of Plato’s search for the ‘forms’ started thousands of years ago at the dawning of western civilization.  This has led western philosophy and theology to forever seek out truth in the answers to questions of ‘being’.  However, Deleuze says that all philosophers and philosophies that take this approach fall victim to ‘subjectification’.  They favor ‘being’ over ‘becoming’; what is actual in contrast to what is potential.

            Marxism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and structuralist semiotics all make this same mistake.  Each of these systems assumes various substructures subsume every construct.  The identity of reality was thus hidden in the difference between the visible structure and its underlying sub-structure.  This method of thought constitutes the basic approach of ‘structuralism’.  Marxism takes the Hegelian approach to the dialectic and applies it to socio-economic concerns.  It establishes the existence of the lofty ‘super-structure’ and contrasts it with the underlying ‘base’ or infrastructure.  Freud proclaimed the dialectic created by the ‘conscious’ in opposition to the ‘subconscious’.  Structuralism in semiotics sees language through the lenses of the signifier and the signified.  True meaning is established through the difference between the signifying word and the signified-subject.  Each of these philosophies makes an unwarranted subjectification where they evaluate the sub-structure of depths as being prior to the witnessed structure.

            Thus, while Marxism, Freudianism, and Structuralism have formed much of the groundwork of modern thinking, abandoning the dialectic will require entirely new foundations to be dug in order to establish a new image of thought.  The new philosophy would rest on the notions of ‘surface’, ‘sense’ and ‘nonsense’.  Instead of the dialectic and negation at a molecular level, the new image of thought would see structure as resonating through the molar repetition of differences.  Deleuze and Guittari began to see existence as constructed through the multiplicity of rhizomes and called this new approach, rhizomatics.  A good model of this strategy of thinking comes from the post-modern quantum theory for atomic structures; elements exist molecularly as the result of the differences in structuring of atomic particles repeated billions of times.  Multiplicty, the existence of several planes and the abandonment of a determinable center, would now be key, as opposed to negation in the Hegelian school of thought.  Rather than analyzing the inner-workings and depths of the psyche, they seek to map out desire.  Schizophrenics could be said to occupy at the surface of their desire, perceiving everything in terms of their will and infinite becoming.  In light of this, Deleuze and Guittari advance ‘schizo-analysis’ as the future-way to understanding the mind.

A New Image of Comedy:

            Penetrating what Deleuze is attempting to communicate with these concepts of ‘surface’ and the ‘logic of ‘sense’ requires understanding how ‘nonsense’ manufactures sense.  The consequences of a new image of thought extend far beyond debates on structuralism in classrooms and into every area of thought, communication, and culture.  The philosophy of Deleuze is clearly rhizomatically related to iconic developments in popular culture of Deleuze’s era and in the time since.  There may be no better endeavor with which to apply schizo-analysis, than to that gallant tradition of destruction of nobility in carefully constructed thought; well-timed comedy.

Humor exists, according to Deleuze, in order to quickly deterritorialize the barest of presuppositions.   Humor, thus, is a very definite function of the war machine.  Yet, comedy has for long instead been derived from what Deleuze calls ‘Socratic irony’.  True humor has always evaded this form of comedy, however.  This is because the sense of humor demands the rapid destruction of absurdity. Deleuze comments that, “By same movement with which language falls from the height and depths then plunges below, we must be led back to the surface where there is no longer anything to denote or even to signify, but where pure sense is produced.” (Deleuze, 136) This is often most effectively performed through the embracement and projection of the absurd, of nonsense.  Irony however establishes the co-existence of two contradictory meanings, leading to a resentful sarcasm that favors the underlying intent.  Deleuze describes classical irony as, “The instance which assures the coextensiveness of being and of the individual within the world of representation.” (Deleuze, 138) Well into the twentieth-century, comedy seemed to fall into the same structuralist traps as Marxism and Freudianism.  Youth-culture movements such as the ‘hipsters’ favored being ironic over literal.  However, this form of territorializing comedy would never last.  By the twenty-first century a term had emerged for a new cultural direction; post-irony.  In order to define such a pop-culture based term there is only one conceivable source of definition, the user-contribution based UrbanDictionary.Com.  Urban Dictionary defines ‘post-ironic’ as, “When one's ironic appreciation of something becomes genuine, usually due to either prolonged exposure or the enjoyment derived from how amusingly terrible it is.”  Deleuze himself has very specific complaints about comedy derived from irony.  He writes that, “What all the figures of irony have in common is that they confine the singularity within the limits of the individual or the person.  Thus, irony only in appearance assumes the role of a vagabond.” (Deleuze, 139)  In simpler terms, irony is never funny because it focuses what it calls ‘absurd’ within boundaries it has set to derive a measure of truth.  It cannot be funny because it ignores the potential of the individual’s desire, rather than embracing it as a way of destroying absurdity.  Irony is only hypocrisy then.

            Hence, the concept of the ‘post-ironic’ would seem to strike the heart of the sense of humor.  After all, what is funny is always being simultaneously being laughed at and with.  Thus, true comedy would favor no subjectification.  Jokes would not be constructed through the contrasting of the ‘real’ world within an ideal one as is the case with jokes based purely in irony. Deleuze summarizes how to be funny as such, “What is required is humor, as opposed to the Socratic irony or to the technique of the ascent.” (Deleuze, 135)  Through nonsense the comedy would rapidly generate a sense of destroying the absurdities proclaimed all around as truth or logic.  The characters would thus need to be appropriately schizoid; living presently, occupying the surface, and perceiving desire as one intense flow.  They would approach issues nomadalogically, letting their lines of flight guide them along their planes of immanence.  Humor is referred to as an adventure by Deleuze, and indeed it is, he summarizes, “This adventure of humor, this two-fold dismissal of height and depth to the advantage of the surface is,…, the adventure of the Stoic sage.” (Deleuze, 136)  Thus, comedians embody what could be deemed a post-modern embracement of Stoicism, accepting and confronting the chaosmos in its absurd entirety without resentment.

The great Steve Martin once pined, “Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.”  Mr. Martin thus grasped that in order to be funny comedy must affirm the chaosmos by showing how chaos emerges from order in everyday life.  Any attempt to search for depth, height, or the illusion of progress would ultimately be doomed to absurdity.  Deleuze expands that, “There is a difficult relation, which rejects the false Platonic duality of the essence and the example.  This exercise, which consists in substituting designations, monstratinos, consumptions, and pure destructions for significations…” (Deleuze,136) These destructive elements would spread the most refreshing elements of the war machine throughout the living rooms of Comcast customers everywhere.  Only such a comedy, imagined from these lines, would be truly funny. Perhaps, no show on American television has a better grasp of this, and schizo-comedy in general, than It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, created by Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day.

The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention:

Charlie:  “Dude man what is going on with you man, you’ve been going off the deep end lately?”

Mac: “Really Stepping up the Insanity Frank”

Frank: “I’m trying to push myself see how far I can go.”

Dennis: “ I feel like you’ve been standing on the edge of a cliff for a while now, I say, ‘hop off.’”

- From ‘The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

            In the momentous episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, ‘The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention’, the gang, a group consisting of three male and 1 female thirty-year olds who run a bar, seek urgent assistance for their nomadic patriach, Frank Reynolds, a drug-addled former robber-baron, played by Danny Devito.  Frank has enough money and few enough morals that he is able to live out his glory days perfectly nomadically.  He is always experimenting with his limits, trying to map out new territories for himself. Frank understands becoming, living within the realm of his possibilities.

            Eventually, however, the Gang comes to the conclusion that some new ‘event’ is required to re-territorialize Frank’s life.  However, they struggle to communicate their special needs for an intervention to the therapist attempting to assist them.  She asks them for information to help her ‘understand’ Frank’s problem.  “What’s Frank struggling with the most?”  The Gang, who understands that Frank’s problem is beyond comprehension, gives her a reply that is completely at the surface, only reflecting what they see as the main problem along Frank’s plane of immanence.  Dennis responds to the therapist, “Well he is trying to bang our aunt.” (which is true, as now she and Frank are both widows).

            The therapist, like most therapists, struggles to see the situation without evaluating the problem as lying with drugs and alcohol.  She states, “These things normally have more to do with drugs and alcohol.”  The Gang however, realizes that drugs and alcohol are not the cause of Frank’s problem they are however related to it at the surface, which they are trying to map out.  Charlie summarizes for the therapist, “Drugs and alcohol are rolled into what we’re talking about.”

            The therapist tries to gain an understanding of the situation, but at the end of their conversation she can only say, “You know? I do offer group therapy.”

The Gang is absolutely bewildered by this, responding, “What is this?  Did you try to intervene on us?”  The therapist politely reflects upon what they have been discussing, “With All Due Respect, you’re talking about bringing guns to an intervention, and you’re drinking wine out of a soda can.”

The therapist immediately begins to search for depth in the Gangs comments and actions, seeing problems with how they live at every turn.  She cannot understand that the live at the surface.  The Gang however can see the situation in no other way.  There thoughts have already followed their lines of flight to wine-filled soda can.  Dennis interjects, “You’re drinking out’ve that can?”  This leads Dee and Charlie to map out Frank’s other qualities.  Dee responds, “Yeah you like that… he’s a smart man.” Charlie agrees, “You stole Frank’s idea… he’s got good ideas… but I do I think she just tried to intervention on us.”  This leads the gang back to the plane of immanence currently facing them with the therapist and intervention.  Dennis refuses to allow the therapist to territorialize for them like that, casting her aside with, “I do think she tried to intervene on us… I think you’ve lost control of the room here.”

            Later on, the Gang takes the initiative to initiate the intervention according to their desire.  They decide to map out their desire by writing letters to Frank explaining the various ways in which his addiction has injured them.  Charlie, being illiterate, dictates to Dennis, posing this revealing question for Frank; “When was the last time we played night-crawlers together Frank?”  Dennis can’t help but ask, “Okay, what is that?”  Charlie explains to him that, “It’s no big deal… it’s what it sounds like.”

            At this time however, Dennis can no longer resist the line of flight pulling him towards greater discovery. Dennis claims, “Yeah, but now you’ve said it, and I can’t move past it… What it sounds like is that you two crawl around together at night… like worms.” This new line of flight was begun by the event that Dennis cannot move past; night-crawlers.  Perhaps Dennis desires explore a similar becoming-animal to the surface mapped by Charlie and Frank in their apartment games. 

            The time for the intervention approaches, and the Gang has realized that they may not know if what they are doing is a good idea.  This leads them to ask the therapist to return to help them however, as Dee surmises, “I’m guessing from that look on your face you wouldn’t have lured him [Frank] down here with a fire.”  The therapist continues to resist deterritorializing from the normal boundaries within which she acts and thinks, commenting, “Yeah.  And I wouldn’t have an intervention at a bar either.”  Sweet Dee can only reply, “Well, look lady, all mistakes we made on our own, so it’s a good thing that you’re here.”

Suddenly Frank bursts into the room waving his pistol high in the air.  Filled with the passion of the war-machine and ready to face the destructive and deterritorializing force of the fire he yells, “Where’s the Goddamn fire?”  However, the Gang quickly descends upon him frantically trying to wrestle the firearm away from Frank while shouting, “Intervention!  Intervention… Intervention! Woooooop!   You’re trapped!  You’re trapped… you’re trapped!  Woooooooop! Gotcha! Gotcha!”

Frank confused about where the lines of flight are leading from this event asks, “What’s going?”  Dennis’s reply summarizes the Gang’s mapping out of surface of the event very plainly for them.  He drunkenly proclaims, “You sit down so we can tell you what an asshole you’ve been!” while Dee adds “We’re gonna get all in your face and point out your faults!”

Frank, however, in true schizophrenic fashion, transforms the event so that at the surface, which Frank most definitely occupies, becomes something according to his desire; “A Roast?!”  “I’ve always wanted to be roasted!”

Series on the Intervention:

Charlie: “Why do we never play night-crawlers anymore?”

Frank: “I don’t know Charlie?”

Dee: “What is that?”

Dennis: “It’s a game where they crawl around at night like worms.”

Charlie“I never said that.”

Frank: “Yeah, well that’s what it is.”

Charlie: “Intervention! Intervention! Is nothing private Frank?”

-From ‘The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

“Intervention!  Intervention… You can’t be banging Gail the snail!” shout Dennis and Dee at a new event interrupting their plane of immanence and directing their lines of flight away from the previous events.  This new event was the intervention of the gangs other member Mac.  He replies with, “What are you interventioning on me for… Donna just reminds me so much of your mom which was you know like the best sex I ever had.”

            Suddenly Frank shouts “Intervention!  Intervention!  You banged my dead wife?”

 The Gang’s line of flight has been rapidly deterritorialized by the intervention of another event; Mac’s past affair with Frank’s now deceased wife.  The word, ‘intervention’, has come to have an entirely different sense as it is used by the Gang in comparison to what normal semiotics would interpret it to signify.  The Gang may just as well substitute the word ‘event’ for intervention and say that they are staging an event rather than giving an intervention.  All they are really looking to do is create a moment of aggression in order cause a detteritorialization.  This event causes them to remap their plane of immanence and to redraw their lines of flight according to their desire.  Thus, by screaming, “Intervention!” in someone’s face, the Gang have discovered a method in which they can create an event allowing them to exist at the surface.  By shouting they draw attention to the present moment, the line of flight that have brought them there, and the plane of immanence facing them.

It is obvious how the characters within the show make use of the word to keep themselves and others at the surface, but it was the writers of the show that are the real engines of comedy.  By always keeping their characters at the surface – usually through on-screen intoxication – the producers of the show have also found a way to continually and rapidly deterritorialize their show for the audience.  The show is less written filled with jokes rather than it is determined by the schizophrenic interruptions of its cast.  This prevents the audience from attempting to create territories for the show.  Such territorialization might allow them to extract meaning from the show, but there is none to be had.  It is entirely at the surface, and must be watched as such.  Anyone who cannot do this will not enjoy the humor in the show.  It is not a show for state-thinkers.

Mac: “Well she was alive at the time? Did you not know that?”

Frank: “No…”

Charlie: “It’s cool man.  Intervention… Intervention.”

-From ‘the Gang Gives Frank an Intervention, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The Nightman Cometh:

Charlie: “doo deedee doo deedee doo, some other musical stuff!”

Mac: “What’cha doing buddy?”

Charlie: “I wrote a musical”

-From ‘The Nightman Cometh’, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

And with that completely nonsensical opening, begins a new tale of superheroes, Princesses, monsters, and villains.  There will be bravery and there will be mischief.  And true to form, the paradigm episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s fourth season, ‘The Nightman Cometh’ is completely devoid of depth whatsoever.  It is a pure schizophrenic episode.  The coming of the Nightman could indeed be seen as an event within the context of the show in the true Deluzian sense of the term.  It was this coming that served as the major focal event around which the show’s most schizoid character, Charlie Kelly, organizes his plane of immanence.  The writing of his musical was an act borne solely out of desire.

            The gang responds to Charlie’s statement with their usual astoundment.  Dennis asks, “What?  Why?”  Sweet Dee even proclaims to Charlie that, “Nobody writes a musical without a reason.  That makes no sense.”  However, this search for ‘reason’ betrays Dennis and Dee’s common miscomprehension of the term sense.  Sense is not produced through formal logic in statement.  Things do not need a reason to make sense.  In fact, having a reason for action is inherently a search for depth, thus keeping the actor from acting on the surface of their desire. “But who verses?  Who are we doing this verses?” Mac asks.  Neither Mac, nor the rest of the Gang, can apprehend the situation through any mechanism other than the dialectic.  They see everything in terms of negation; their actions continually expect and enforce a displacement of the other.  Charlie understands this, however the others do not.  To their questions, Charlie’s only response is a mere,  “Okay, well, this guy did.”

            Dee later has additional struggles with interpreting the ‘meaning’ of the performance.  She asks Charlie in frustration, “Charlie… What the hell is this play about?  However, she inevitably fails in her quest to do so, because she cannot envision the drama without conceiving of a substructure to it, the words and lyrics must imply some deeper meaning.  Sweet Dee continues, “I’m a Princess who lives in a coffeeshop?  Why am I in love with a little boy?”  Charlie tries to calm Dee by answering, “You’re in love with a young man.”  However, Dee cannot understand yet how a boy becomes a man – by the end of the episode, everyone will – she claims, “You wrote boy… the audience is going to think I’m a child molester.”   Sweet Deandra can only see the subject boy as signifiying a little boy, and her intents as signifiying to commit statutory rape, as if her performance of a character in a play would cause people to seek a molesting-depth in the nonsensical song she is supposed to sing.  Dee continues to impede the progress of the play, “Charlie, are you goddamn Kidding me?  You’re wanting me to say I want to make love to a tiny, little, baby boy!”

Charlie has soon had enough of Dee’s problems, later saying that he will “Smack the face out of your face!”  Charlie, again by far the most schizophrenic character, knows that the drama he has written has no meaning – after all, Charlie is illiterate.  The words are only reflective of his desires, which are discovered later in the episode.  Charlie argues with Deandra, reiterating, “I’ve explained this to you.  It’s a metaphor.”

Dee, however, can still not abandon her search for deeper meaning, questioning him, “I’m not convinced you know what that word means.”

Series on Trolls:

Frank: “You’ve gotta pay the troll toll, to get into this boy’s hole, you’ve gotta pay the troll toll to get in, you’ve gotta…”

Charlie: “Okay, stop, stop.  Good rhythm, I like the enthusiasm.  It sounds like you’re saying ‘boy’s hole’, and its clearly ‘soul’.”

-from ‘the Nightman Cometh’, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

            Dee’s confusion over the play’s obvious lack of meaning is shared by the rest of the cast.  The Gang’s perennial attempts to search for symbols within the work continue to forcefully territorialize it.  Mac presents the issue as, “Charlie, can I bring something up?  I think we have to be very careful about how we do the rape seen.”  The Gang misreads the schizoid play like Freudian psychoanalysis misreads the schizophrenic mind, favoring the depth to form a hierarchy.  Charlie point blankly responds that, “There’s no rape seen.”  Mac, who plays the character of the Nightman while Dennis play the part of the little boy to become Dayman, continues with, “Well sure… I pay the troll-toll, then I rape Dennis.”

Words and their meanings have a very different function in the schizophrenic mind of Charlie.  Charlie attempts to explain the very different concepts embodied by the words he uses, telling Mac that, “No, you do not rape him… you become him…. Let me walk you guys through this….  Once he gets near you, you have to sense him, suddenly you sense him!”  The meaning in the language that Charlie uses is based on his desire rather than on words functioning as symbols for a signified something.  The fact that the audience gets the ‘sense’ of rape from this scene underscores the inherent aggression and violence in becoming.  The Nightman approaches the sleeping boy from behind, turning away from the face and betraying the trust of the boy.  However, by doing so the Nightman initiates an event of becoming, which forever changes the little boy.  This event actually leads the boy on the path to fulfillment by forcing him to become a man, finally allowing him to follow his line of flight.

            Hence, the event of the coming of the Nightman leads the boy to a profound affirmation of his own manliness.  He gains the strength to confront the troll that has dominated and territorialized every aspect of his plane of immanence.  The troll demands, “Come over here and scratch my itchy-witchy toesy-woesies… I control you!”  However, the coming of the Nightman has brought something the despot-troll did not expect, for the boy has not emerged as Nightman, but as Dayman, his polar opposite.  The boy now makes his declaration of manliness, “You control nothing.  I am not you’re slave anymore, and I am not a boy!  I am not a man… I am… the Dayman!”  There is not a dialectic established between the Nightman and the Dayman, the identity of ‘the boy’ – which reflects Charlie – is not determined by the negation of the two.  Rather Charlie’s identity can only be understood through Charlie’s desire to become ‘Dayman’ as he has shaped his plane of immanence entirely in response to the event of the coming of the Nightman.

Becoming the Charlie Day-man:

Princess: “You have defeated the evil that was here.  You once were a boy but now you’re a man and I am in love with you.”

-From The Nightman Cometh, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

            Throughout It’s Always Sunny there is one character that embodies the new image of comedy in its fullest sense.  That event is Charlie Kelly, who goes by the first name of the actor who plays him, Charlie Day.  Psychoanalysists would most likely kill to get Charlie Kelly onto their plush velvet sofas.  Throughout the course of several seasons the It’s Always Sunny audience comes to learn that Charlie’s mother was – and actually still is – a prostitute who commonly has relations with his Uncle.  It also becomes quite evident however, that this Uncle molested Charlie multiple times when he was a child, quite possibly with the knowledge of his mother.  Psychoanalysis will never be able to correctly understand the impact these abuses had on Charlie however because the do not map out the his schizophrenic desires that have arisen in response.

            Only schizo-analysis can begin to bring revelation about this character and the nonsensical musical he produces.  His drama, ‘The Nightman Cometh’, contains no symbolism and no deeper structure underlies it.  Only understanding it at its surface can bring clarity.  The search for depth leads the Gang to look for meaning under the surface sense of the plays songs and lines, causing them to see molestation everywhere within it.  Now obviously audiences – although in multi-season long dramatic irony, not the Gang – make the obvious connection between the abuses Charlie suffered in childhood and the Dayman’s conflict with the troll and Nightman.  However, psychoanalysis offers no further understanding because it does not see how the play is in response to Charlie’s desire, not his response to being molested years ago.

            A the very end of the musical, after the choir has finished the last refrain of Dayman, Charlie Kelly emerges in a brilliant yellow Producer’s suit to sing one final song.  In this song he affirms his past, but also his becoming into something new.  He reveals that the play was not reactive, but an active force of his desire.  What Charlie desires, is that Coffee-shop Princess singing about little boys performed by Sweet Dee.  The real Coffee shop waitress is however sitting in the audience, for Charlie had agreed to stop stalking her on the condition that she come watch the musical.  He reveals to the entire audience that the entire play was only the instrument of his desire for her.

“I was that little boy, that little baby-boy was me, I once was a boy, but now I am a man, I fought the Nightman, lived as Dayman, now I’m here to ask for your hand, so if you want to marry, will you marry me?”

-from ‘The Nightman Cometh’, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

            Obviously her reply is a firm and resolute, “No!”  The Charlie Kelly of Philadelphia may have failed his audience, however Charlie Day, the writer and actor, has provided real audiences with the perfect summary of schizoid desire, all in within one twenty-two minute episode.  His comprehension of how to keep a character at the surface, of how to communicate a character’s desire, is strongly reminiscent of another legend of American comedy with the same name, Charlie Chaplin.  These geniuses keep their audiences from penetrating the surface of their show, relying on nonsense to produce sense for their watchers.  This is as Deleuze explains, “In all these respects, the surface is the transcendental field itself, and the locus of sense and expression.” (Deleuze, 125) Thus, they are able to create a world of continual and violent deterriotrializiation that is quite simply very funny.  As Deleuze writes about humor in The Logic of Sense, “The important thing is to do it quickly: to find quickly something to designate, to eat, or to break, which would replace the signification (the Idea) that you have been invited to look for.  All the faster and better since there is no resemblance between what one points out and what one has been asked.” (Deleuze, 135)  Charlie Day and the rest of the Gang from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia understand that humor functions in this way, providing them with a finely honed comedic sense allowing them to turn the most ordinary and meaningless of themes into absurdly revealing situational comedy.  They possess what Deleuze refers to as an ‘odd inspiration’ — that, “one know how to ‘descend.’” (Deleuze, 135)  This is the new image of comedy.